Popularity of early voting, absentee ballots strong in primary

NAPLES - There were only minor surprises in total voter turnout on Tuesday, and how quickly the information was processed and released.

Dave Carpenter, qualifying officer for Collier Supervisor of Elections Jennifer Edwards' office, said they were somewhat surprised that there wasn't a larger turnout.

They were predicting 20 percent, including absentee and early voters. They came close: a little more than 18 percent. Of that number, a bit more than 10 percent came from absentee and early voters.

"I'm surprised we didn't see more voters on Election Day. It was a beautiful day out," Carpenter said, adding that the office can supply polling places and ballots but when it comes to casting the vote, that is up to the individual.

Even so, elections officials are detecting a trend, because more than 50 percent of Collier's voters took advantage of either absentee or early voting, he said.

Of the 37,813 ballots cast, 20,909, or 55 percent, were done ahead of election day, either by early voting or absentee ballots.

In 2004, about 55 percent voted before Election Day, Carpenter said.

Those numbers "will continue to increase," Carpenter said. "People don't have to stand in line unless they want to."

The new voting machines had volunteers on a "learning curve," but vote totals that were filed late were unrelated to the optical-scan voting machines put into use with this election.

Election officials had to pull separate results from each scanner, then results from the last of the touch-screen handicap-access voting machines, Carpenter said.

Sending in the results by modem for the county's 93 precincts takes "only a matter of seconds," but when 93 computers are trying to phone in at the same time, there's bound to be a bit of a delay, Carpenter said.

The final unofficial results showed that of a possible 197,716 registered voters, a total of 37,813 ballots, or 19 percent were cast.

The count will not be official until the Collier County Canvassing Board sits down on Tuesday and reviews the results, Carpenter said.